“Oh God. Oh God!” Madison digs her fingernails into the sheets on either side of her.

My face is buried between her thighs, and I’m taking my sweet time. She’s already come once. I’m bringing her there slowly on round two.

She drags her heel up the middle of my back to urge me on, but nothing’s going to make me push her over the edge before I’m good and goddamn ready to.

“I want to come, Luke. Don’t make me wait…”

“I’ll make you wait as long as I want to. And you’ll like it,” I murmur against her wet flesh. I secure her legs, holding them firmly apart so I can lap up her creamy arousal as she gives it to me. I’m faintly hungry, but I’d been telling the truth before. I’d rather eat her. And even though my cock wants to be reunited with her delicious pussy, I’m appreciating this appetizer before the entree.

I pride myself on my patience. Life’s too precious to rush through it. Years can fly by and might amount to nothing. An experience worth having is one worth fully experiencing. I am not wishing this away… I am not wishing her away.

Nothing about my time with Madison makes me think she feels the same way. She’s always rushing. Running head first into situations she hasn’t thought through. From barging into my cabin last week to mouthing off to the waitress an hour ago. She’s all passion and no goddamn sense.

I don’t want fly-by-night. And I don’t want her spending time with me for the wrong reasons. I wasted years with someone who’d moved on too quickly with someone else. I don’t blame my ex completely for our failed marriage, but I’d learned a powerful lesson about relying too much on the wrong people. I never want to find myself in that position again.

A low moan crawls past Madison’s throat and she arches off the bed, her body forming a tense bow. She’s right there. Right there…

I pull my mouth off and flick her clitoris with my index finger…hard.

“Ahhh!” She screams and lifts her head to glare down at me. “What the hell are you doing to me?”

I lick my lips and smile. I glide the pads of my wet fingertips over her swollen bud. Back and forth, soft and steady. Her glare melts into an expression of beautiful agony. Her lips fall open and her head falls back. Her long dark hair pools on the bedspread. Shadows play off her body, the incredible curves of her breasts, and the sheen of sweat that matches her scorching skin.

“Please…” She’s trembling. Shudders take over her body every time I add the faintest pressure.

I want to make her wait. I’m tempted to fucking torture her right now. But I have needs too, and I’ve been patient long enough.

I rise to my feet and haul her roughly to the edge of the bed. Her eyes are wide as I fold her calves around my waist.

“Put me in that position again, Madison…and I’ll keep you hanging for hours. Do you hear me?”

Her glare starts to return, but she’s too hazy with lust to give it much force. I fist my cock and stroke firmly. I’m so fucking ready to be inside her. I know she wants it too. Her gaze fixes there and she lifts her hips infinitesimally.

“Do you hear me?” I lift an eyebrow and drag the tip of my aching cock over her clit and down through her drenched folds until I’m exactly where I need to be.

Another whimper escapes her lips, but she doesn’t tell me what I want to hear. Without warning, I shove into her with one hard thrust.

“Yesss!”

That one word becomes long and desperate and fills the room. Whether it’s all rapture or some small part acknowledgment of her fuck up, I can’t be sure, but her scream gets under my skin and mingles with my insane desire for her. Fuck me, she was made for me. The glorious pressure of her cunt gloving my cock is making me dizzy already.

My patience has expired. I begin to fuck her. Harder than I usually do. Maybe because I’ve still got adrenaline spiking my blood. Maybe because I’m unsettled by everything about tonight. Whatever the reason, we’re barreling toward release, hard and fast…together. I give her clit one last bit of attention, and she crushes down on me with a thready cry. Then I’m emptying everything that I am into her…

I’m vaguely aware of the bathroom vent humming in the background. The shower turning on and then off. The silence becomes loud when Luke’s footsteps end inside the bedroom. I’m on cloud nine, but the heat of my orgasm eventually fades and I grab a handful of sheet to cover myself with. I lift my head and see Luke sitting on the chair by the desk. His lower body is wrapped in a white towel and his arms hang casually off the sides of the chair. His gaze is trained on me.

I blink a few times, trying to pull myself back to the land of the living. “Is everything okay?”

He’s silent, and every second that goes by alarms me. He brings one hand to his face and absently rubs the rough hair on his cheek. It’s a tick. He does it when he’s pensive. Thinking about something and doesn’t know I’m watching him.

“I honestly don’t know,” he says quietly.

I sit up and bring the sheet tighter around my torso. “Talk to me.”

“I am talking to you.”

I roll my eyes. “Jesus—”

“Don’t give me shit, Maddy. We left here in the first place so we could talk. I get halfway through a confession about my failed marriage and you’re picking a fight. And getting off on it.”

I open my mouth but I’m struggling to find the right words. He’s literally fucked my brains out. Great.

Then he’s on his feet and coming toward me. Crawling up the bed, he pressures me to my back again. He’s totally throwing me off, but he prevents me from saying anything when he kisses me. He kisses me like we haven’t spent the past couple hours feasting on each other. He kisses me like in the few minutes he was sitting in that chair, he missed me.

When he pulls back, I search his gaze breathlessly. Those blue eyes are two oceans full of memories and thoughts I know too little about. I’m about to beg him to open up to me when he speaks again.

“I’m falling in love with you, Madison.”

My mouth hangs open dumbly. My heart’s thundering now, reverberating in my ears. The intensity in his gaze never wavers.

“I love your body. Every beautiful inch of it. I love the way you try to protect me, even though I have no need for it. I love that you try to do things your own way, even when it’s idiotic and ill-timed.”

I frown and think about arguing, but he brushes his thumb across my lips, distracting me with his tenderness again.

“I can’t help how I feel now. So when you ask me if I’m okay, I’m telling you I don’t really know. I’m not sure what this means or what’s really going on between us. All I know is I want to be more than a man who can get you wet because he can lay a few guys out.”

“No! That’s not…”

I pressure his shoulder and he rolls to his side. I roll to mine so we can face each other with a little more equality. But I’m feeling off kilter and completely awful as his words filter through me a few more times. He loves me…and he thinks I’m a total whore.

I close my eyes with a sigh. “Luke, everything about you arouses me. Watching you build a fire. Chop wood. Warm up soup in a pathetic little pot for me. You knocking on my door gets me wet, for God’s sake. Trust me, there is no end to the things that do.”

He’s quiet, and I scramble for more words… Hopefully the right ones.

“I’m sorry I put you in that position. I had no idea those people were going to act like barbarians.”

“I’m the one who put my fist to their faces, remember?”

“And they deserved it!” I poke a finger at his strong chest, reliving the moment with a little too much enthusiasm. I wanted to see justice doled out on those assholes. “Did it occur to you that maybe they needed to learn a lesson? Maybe next time they see you they’ll have some more respect.”

Luke shrugs. “Or they’ll bring a search party up the mountain for me.”

“They wouldn’t.” My eyes go wide despite my doubts.

A reassuring smile curves the corners of his lips. “Don’t worry. I don’t think a big boy like Melvin’s going to make it too far up the mountain. And if he did, he’d be too winded to pose much of a threat. But I’m guessing I won’t be getting any dinner invites next time I’m in town for supplies.”

My lips tighten, and in that moment, I’m overwhelmed with how unfair Luke’s existence is. He may be content with it, but the fact that experiences beyond his control drove him up there and now the people in this know-nothing town keep him there is more than I can accept.

“You deserve more than this,” I say softly.

His expression is calm and unchanged. “What would you have me do? I’m not like you. I’m not cut out for city life. Small towns are always going to pose their own challenges. It’s something I came to terms with a long time ago.”

I exhale a sigh. “You really love me?”

He lifts his hand to my face and strokes his thumb across my cheekbone. “Yeah. I really do.”

I’m not caught up over how quickly feelings have formed between us. What’s got the words knotted in my throat is the fact that I’ve never said them to anyone but Jeremy. I always meant it, even when I said it in passing, even at the bitter end. He’d always have a place in my heart…but I was a long way from being in love with my ex-husband. That chapter had long closed. He was my past.

Was Luke Dawson my future?

I lean in and kiss him softly. “I’m falling for you too,” I whisper against his lips. “As scary as it is, I can’t help how you’ve made me feel. It’s not just the way you make me forget my own name. No one’s ever made me feel so safe, so…cared for. And I’ve given you no reason to—”

“Madison, stop with that. You deserve love. You deserve a real man. I don’t know who your ex is, but I know he’s a fucking idiot to let you go. I’m glad as hell he did though.” He sifts his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp as he does. “Because I haven’t been this happy in a long time. And that’s all you, sweetheart.”

I release a heavy sigh and close my eyes. This man… God, his words and his body, and the way he’s managed to rescue my heart from the depth of my misery and pull it into the warmth of his love. What did I ever do to deserve him? Even as I admit all of this to myself, the reality of my life outside of Avalon creeps in. I thought this was a fling, but it’s rapidly becoming more. The thought of walking away from Luke in a few weeks is now unbearable.

“How are we going to make this work?”

He blinks and shakes his head slightly. “I have no idea.”

“I’m here for three more weeks.”

“And then?”

I take my lower lip between my teeth and chew it as my thoughts whirl around the possibilities. “We’ll have to figure it out somehow. Our lifestyles are admittedly really far apart. I say we spend the next few weeks trying to find some middle ground.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Middle ground?”

I should be freaking out that we’ll never find a way to be together, but something about this moment heartens me. I’ve been thinking about life’s cup as half empty for so long, but somehow I have faith that we’ll find a way to fill each other up and be together. Either that or I’m totally unwilling to contemplate the alternative—us walking away from each other in a few weeks.

“You love your place on the mountain.”

“It’s home,” he answers softly.

“And my home is in LA.”

“I’d prefer hours of torture over that life.”

I nod quickly, because I can no more imagine him happy there than me being permanently content with a life in his log hut.

I trace my fingertips over his soft lips and trail them down across his beard. My beautiful rugged mountain man. “That’s why we need to find a middle ground. Kind of like this place… Avalon. It’s not your oasis on the mountain, and it’s not in town with all those ignorant assholes. But it’s someplace we can both be. We’ll both have to step out of the lifestyles that make us comfortable, test our boundaries, and find that place where we can both be happy, together.”

“Where would that be?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea. But I’m not walking away from you, so I’m committed to figuring it out.”

He’s silent for a moment. His blue eyes are intense, flickering mirrors of swirling emotion. We’re making big promises. We’re baring souls. I’m scared and enlivened all at once.

“Okay,” he finally says. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll… I’ll do the best I can.”

I smile, and my heart swells with happiness and hope. I haven’t felt like this since—I can’t remember when my soul felt so alive. I launch forward to wrap my arms around Luke, my lover, my love…